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periwinklemoonlight · 5 months

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little sunshine ⋆ boatem knights au

my second short story set in bee @applestruda 's boatem knights au and canon to the plot written by zera @hopepetal !! also make sure to check out bee's bkau gem and etho designs <3 !

cw: decapitation, murder, blood

if you prefer, you can read it on ao3!

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“-And you’re sure this is the man responsible?” The room was spacious, more than big enough for hundreds to fit in, yet the tension in the air filled it with an undeniably claustrophobic atmosphere. Precious artefacts lined the walls and occupied the floors, meticulously positioned in a perfect pattern to suit the path of a would-be museum goer. Now, however, one was missing. And only the most ancient and irreplaceable of the lot, of course.

“Completely.” An odd chill ran up the spine of the curator as she spoke. It shouldn’t have been possible, she thought, she had barely taken her eyes off of that corner of the room for a second before the amulet had vanished into thin air. All she had caught a glimpse of in the aftermath, she was sure of, was a man with stark white hair and a mask darker than the deepest night sky, fleeing the scene with a swiftness she could only ascribe to a seasoned thief.

She had only ever seen that man once before, yet something in her gut was absolutely sure it was him. A few years back, she had stayed at an inn just out of town on a business trip. Her stay had been all-around pleasant, the owner undoubtedly a delight to talk to, full of cheerful stories and helpful advice for travel. The same couldn't've been said for their companion, however.

He had brooded in the corner of the inn, shooting her occasional unreadable glances as she conversed with the owner, any emotion beyond ice cold eyes concealed by a mask of blackest night. His back to the wall, practically blending in with the shadows around him, she had nearly cancelled her stay the minute she spotted him.

The only thing that had convinced her to stay despite her better judgement was the owner’s utmost insistence that that man was nothing to fear, that she’d be completely and utterly safe at the inn. Something in their tone had been so, so earnest, she couldn’t help but be inclined to believe them. They were right, she had been entirely safe after all, yet she never could quite shake the cold chill that permeated her body every time the man passed her by.

“Then it seems we’ve got a bounty on our hands.” The guard concluded with a severe nod.

“Bounty, you say?” A cheery voice asked from across the room. The curator whipped her head around to watch as polished hooves clicked onto the museum flooring.

“How did you-?” The curator asked, before cutting herself off to fully take in the person before her. There stood Gemini Tay, adorned in finely crafted emerald silks and lightweight armour, wild red hair expertly contained in a sweeping braid, and absolutely armed to the teeth in various weapons hanging lazily across her waist. It wasn’t a bad look for the most notorious bounty hunter in the land, all things considered.

“Word gets around,” Gem replied with a grin, absentmindedly twirling an intricately carved knife in her hand as she approached. “And I’m always down to lend a helping hand!”

She paused, then eyed the curator’s own ostentatious outfit. “...For a fair price, of course.”

“Of course,” The curator repeated, a keen smile worming its way to her face.

⋆⋆⋆

If there was one thing she relished in being known for, it was that once she had her target in her sights, Gem wasted no time.

It wasn’t hard to spot him, after all. The description the curator had given her was one of the most interesting she’d gotten in a while. A man known only as “Etho”, with a harsh red scar blinding him in one eye and never once seen without a dark mask obscuring half his face. During her journey, Gem had learned that nobody in the area could quite recall when he’d started working at the inn, or even if he actually worked there at all. In fact, it was a popular local rumour that the man was simply a vagrant that the kind innkeeper had taken pity on during one particularly frigid winter and never thought to kick out afterwards.

Regardless of whatever his backstory might have been, Gem couldn’t really care less. All she really cared to know about him was that he was the only thing standing between her and a ludicrously lavish payout.

It was only a lucky coincidence that the innkeeper wasn’t in when she arrived. There was her target, standing far too nonchalantly behind the counter and looking as if he was preparing to greet her. She wasn’t about to give him the chance. Instantly she swung at him, hard and fast, looking to get a clean kill. To her astonishment, however, he suddenly disappeared within a blink of an eye, reappearing once more just as fast and now on top of the counter. Gem watched as a dark, smoky substance wafted off him as he jumped down and dissipated as quickly as it appeared.

When she looked at Etho now, it was as if he were slightly transparent, blurred at the edges. She blinked, and he was whole again, no trace of anything amiss. She growled and swung again with impossible force, heaving as her sword broke the floorboards where it landed. Again, she could have sworn that some dark substance was following him, aiding him in his escape.

“Hey, hey! I don’t know what I did but, uh, I’m sure we can settle this some other way?” Etho offered as he slid backwards on the wooden floors like they were an ice rink, smoke trailing off him and weaving through the air.

“No can do sir!” Gem replied as she swung once more, again missing him by a fraction of a centimetre. “You got a hefty bounty on your head, and I intend to take it!”

The fight escalated with Gem’s frustration. She spun herself around and leaped at Etho, sword high in the air and aiming to plunge it deep into his skull. Instead, she hit the inn’s counter, splitting the wood and knocking several small objects astray. Her hooves skidded against the floor as she reeled backwards, and wasted no time forcefully wrenching her sword free.

Wood chippings now scattered across the floor, Gem paid them no mind in her pursuit. The action seemed to distract Etho somewhat, discontent flashing across his heterochromatic eyes, and she took the opportunity to strike.

Finally, with a lucky stab, she managed to pin him down against the inn’s wall, plunging her sword into his shoulder with a devastating crack and watching as what must have been blood seeped out from it. He gasped, eyes darting to the wound. A wild grin found its way to Gem’s face.

“You’re a tricky one, aren’t you?” She asked, using the moment to catch her breath before unsheathing a second, smaller sword from around her waist. The sharp blade glinted in the deep, warm light of the inn. The reflection didn’t make it to Etho’s eyes. “Shame I’m gonna have to take you out like all the rest of ‘em. I’ll make it quick, though. You’ve earned it.”

It was odd, she thought briefly. Despite the sword driven straight through him, he didn’t appear to actually really care about it all that much. His breathing was as steady as ever, and he barely moved at all beside a futile effort to scoot away from her intense gaze. His eyes were calm, watching her every move in something almost akin to silent fascination rather than the fear she had grown accustomed to. No matter, though, Gem decided as she made clean work of him, lopping off his head in a single swing.

It fell to the ground with a solid thunk, rolling slightly before making its stop like any old head should. A tenseness she didn’t know she was holding finally released, and she breathed again. Blood was splattered all over the inn’s floors, and she grit her teeth as she imagined the cut from her paycheck she’d have to give the keeper to get it cleaned. All this for some measly priceless artefact? Still, it was over.

She picked up his head by the hair, and stepped back in shock as she felt just how cold it was. Instantly, it called to mind the way it felt to grab a fistful of snow with no gloves for the first time, fingertips fully immersed in the unadulterated icy chill. For a brief moment, it reminded her of… home. Gem had never considered herself the squeamish type, especially not with an occupation such as hers, but the realization gripping hold of her in that split second was enough to make her gag.

Her grip on his hair loosened for a second, but she caught herself before the head could drop. On a second examination, she noticed what looked like snowflakes scattered in his white hair and decorating his long eyelashes. It was then she finally heard the faint crackling sound that had been slowly spreading around her. The blood that had been flowing freely from Etho’s body was freezing up, and fast.

Gem could do nothing but watch in horror as the blood on the walls and floor turned to thick ice, cracking and shattering into pieces around her as soon as it solidified. Within no time it had spread to his severed head, and she gasped as the blood that still dripped from his neck froze midair and fell to the floor, fragmenting into dozens of tiny pieces.

She broke her gaze from the head in her hands just long enough to witness a mountain of ice emerge from what remained of his body’s neck, accompanied by a low hissing noise that made her stomach churn. Gem realized then the shape that it was forming. Fractals of ice packed in and around each other, working in tandem to sculpt out a new head identical to the one in her hands. The only difference being, there was nothing to cover the lower half of his face. If she could even call that half a face.

Once the hissing had stopped, that same dark substance she had seen swirl around him in their fight began to seep out from the wound, covering the newly formed head in a thin black layer and obscuring his features. Her heart dropped as she watched the shadowy liquid be absorbed into the ice, revealing a brand new head on Etho’s shoulders, indistinguishable from the first and complete with a new mask. His eyes fluttered open.

“That wasn’t very nice of you, now was it?” Etho asked as he turned his head to look over at her, an amused smile painting his voice. Gem screamed.

⋆⋆⋆

Gem had never fainted before. With the amount of blood and guts she spilled with a smile on a daily basis, she hadn’t thought it was even possible for someone like her. Evidently, though, everyone had their limits.

More confusingly, though, was that she had awoken tucked nice and neatly in a warm bed, with at least a dozen pillows cushioning her head and antlers. With a slight turn of her head, she could see a still-warm cup of cocoa resting on the table next to her and causing a sweet scent to waft through the little room she now found herself in.

She groaned, sitting herself up in the bed and trailing her hand up her forehead, where she could feel a piece of gauze sticking out. Another glance around her surroundings revealed that her weapons were nowhere to be seen. Gem cursed under her breath.

Her eyes darted around the room. It was quaint, with wooden walls and flooring and a decorative carpet in the center. Faint light streamed in through a window, accompanied by the warm glow of a candle. Must be early morning, she thought.

Oddly though, the corner across from her seemed to be completely wrapped in shadow, defying the soft sunlight that should have illuminated it. Gem found herself unable to tear her trembling eyes away as the shadowy corner suddenly warped in her vision, the dark matter collecting and solidifying together as a familiar figure materialized before her.

Etho drifted nonchalantly towards her, stopping by the table to eye the mug, something almost disappointed flashing in his expression as he noticed it hadn’t been touched. Gem faintly spotted a stitch in the shoulder of his tunic. He turned his attention to her.

“How’re ya’ holding up?" He asked, his tone both concerned and casual at once. “You took a pretty nasty fall back there! Never seen anything like it, it was crazy.” A small laugh punctuated his last sentence.

She blinked, then blinked again, but found herself unable to erase the image of what she had just seen from behind her eyes. It was the kick she needed to jog her memory though, and she leaped backwards away from him, nearly hitting her head on the wall behind her.

“You… What in void’s name are you!?” She squawked. Etho furrowed his frosted eyebrows quizzically.

“Well, I was hoping maybe you’d be a little bit more appreciative of the setup you’ve got going on here. I even made you a hot cocoa! Iskall told me you guys love that stuff!” There was something genuine in his voice that made Gem calm somewhat, even if his words only added to her bewilderment. She turned back to look at the mug, and slowly reached a hand out to grab it.

Pulling it close to her chest, she spoke, “You made this? For me? Why? I tried to kill you! I did kill you! At least, I think? I’m… still not entirely sure what happened back there.” She stared down into the mug, feeling a weird sense of shame bubble through her. Having the man she’d killed standing right there in front of her, it felt like talking to a ghost. The bounty hunter wasn’t used to having to think about the aftermath of her career beyond what minor property damage could ensue from a struggle, nevermind like this. Her grip on the handle tightened.

“What, this old thing?” Etho asked with another laugh, pulling up his own severed head from the ground next to Gem’s bed. “I left it here for you, since you seemed to really be after it. Figured it could make a nice souvenir from your stay here, you know?” Etho seemed to pick up from Gem’s appalled expression that she did not, in fact, know.

“Okay, okay, uh, well, you can take it with you when you leave if you want.” A pause. “This… is what you’re after, right?” Gem could make out tiny frozen droplets still connected to the head’s neck, suspended in time and ice. Momentarily, she considered being alarmed at the notion that she’d been sleeping soundly next to a severed head, or grilling him on why exactly he thought putting said head in her room was a normal thing to do in the slightest. The thumping pain rattling around in her skull made the decision for her.

“Partially,” she replied curtly, evidently still attempting to win her staring contest with the mug. Finally, she broke the one-sided tension, and dared to take a small sip.

It tasted… cold? No, that wasn't right. The liquid was sweet, if a little watery, and at a comfortably warm temperature. It was more as if the ethos of the mug itself refused to be hot. Like it had reluctantly taken to the liquid, yet refused to be any more than a temporary vessel for its warmth. Or, perhaps even more strangely, as if the liquid itself wasn't quite sure it knew how to be warm.

Despite Gem’s own lukewarm reaction, Etho lit up.

“Do you like it?” he asked, his normally chill and steady voice brightening with excitement. An amused look found its way to Gem’s face at the sudden change.

“It’s nice,” she replied simply. She took another sip, then paused to close her eyes. She swore she could hear a triumphant noise from beside her as she tried to calm her searing nerves. Having the head as proof was good, sure, but the curator had expected — and promised payment for — much more. Gem needed that artefact back. She turned back to face him.

“To be honest, Etho,” She began, “Your head’s not all I’m here for. You don’t just get a bounty on your head for nothing, you know. I’m also here to retrieve that artefact you stole.”

Etho blinked. “The what?”

Now it was Gem’s turn to furrow her brow.

“You know. The amulet of the ancient Sun people? The last surviving of its kind? You took it from a museum just a few days ago.” She tilted her head, not even trying to hide her bafflement. Etho squinted at her. He tapped his fingers on the nightstand beside him thoughtfully.

“Ancient amulet… ancient amulet…” He mused. “Oh! Is that what that shiny gold necklace was? It was just lying around on a shelf at that ‘museum’ place Iskall took me to! I don’t know why nobody else thought to take it, to be honest. Here, check it out!” He tugged at something unseen underneath his mask for a minute, before producing the very artefact Gem had been seeking. He handed it to her casually as her shaky hands returned the mug to its nightstand.

“You’ve been wearing it this whole time!?” She exclaimed, yelping when the item made contact with her skin and reeling backwards at the sudden burst of heat running through her fingertips.

“Ah, yeah.” He didn’t appear too upset at its departure, though Gem couldn't help but notice his lively attitude had faded somewhat. She brushed her thumb over the deep amber pendant, briefly fascinated by the perpetual heat emanating off of it.

“It’s neat, right? I’ve never seen a necklace like it. I wasn’t planning on taking it, at first, but I really wanted to figure out why it made my fingers melt like that.”

“You really are something,” Gem muttered. “But, I’m afraid I’ll have to take this back. A job’s a job.”

He gave her a nod. “Yep, yep, fine by me. Is that all you need?”

“Oh, I have one more thing, actually,” Gem replied, tucking the amulet away safely.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I want my weapons back.”

⋆⋆⋆

The curator grinned and clasped her hands together as she spotted Gem, a full-looking satchel and small brown bag now decorating her waist alongside her clanking swords and knives. The bounty hunter approached her desk with a matching smile, untying the smaller bag and placing it before the curator.

“I see you’ve returned! Remarkably fast as well. This is?”

“The amulet, back safe and sound without a scratch. Very pretty, might I add. Anyone would be able to see why it’s the prized jewel of your exhibit. And why a rotten thief would want to take it.” Gem placed the satchel next to it.

“And this…?”

“That deplorable thief’s head, just as you asked. I can assure you, he won’t be any more trouble for you now.”

“Excellent. Then, I believe you are deserving of your reward.”

“Yes,” Gem repeated. “Excellent.”

#my writing #boatem knights au #bkau #geminitay #ethoslab #cw murder #cw decapitation #cw blood

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